


A Balanced Diet (or, Four Vaguely Interrelated Vignettes about Ray, Fraser, and Food)

by Seascribe



Category: due South
Genre: Food, M/M, Pizza, Post-Call of the Wild, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray is actually starting to like oatmeal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Balanced Diet (or, Four Vaguely Interrelated Vignettes about Ray, Fraser, and Food)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rahmi, who wanted something about Fraser skinning rabbits and Ray refusing to eat them.

Ray is actually starting to like oatmeal. Partly because it's not pemmican or those freeze-dried astronaut lunches, and also it's not something he has to watch Fraser skin before they can eat it. So yeah, oatmeal's pretty great, compared to the other options, but mostly he likes it because it's something he can do. Fraser wriggles out of the sleeping bag in the morning and goes to feed the dogs, and when he comes back, all cold hands and wind-pinked cheeks, Ray's got tea and oatmeal piping hot on that tiny little campstove, waiting for him. It should maybe make Ray feel weird, like he's playing at being Fraser's housewife--tentwife?--or something, but it just makes him feel good, really good. Like maybe making breakfast is part of this weird, Arctic dance they're learning to do together, and Ray's got these moves down pat. He's learning the dance, a little at a time, and pretty soon, he's going to be driving the sled and pitching the tent, pulling his own weight, two-stepping with Fraser all the way across the Great White North.

*

Ray makes lists of the things he's going to do when they finally come home from the quest, when they're somewhere with beds and walls and maybe even electricity and indoor plumbing, if he's real lucky. The first time he says something about it, reels off a list, Fraser's mouth goes sort of tight and there's this look in his eyes that Ray's not supposed to notice, but he does, and he hates it, fuck, he hates it so much, this sort of disappointed, lonely look that says Fraser knew this was all too good to be true. 

"Hey, I'm not saying I've got regrets or anything," Ray tells him, desperate to get rid of that look and hopefully never see it again, ever. "Couldn't have asked for a better adventure, you know? But it's not supposed to be for forever, and there's some stuff about civilisation I'll be glad to see again." The look in Fraser's eyes changes, and for a second Ray's glad, flashes him a grin, but he realises Fraser's not feeling any _better_ , just _different_ , scared, now, in addition to that bone-deep loneliness. 

"Whoa, wait a second," Ray says, and jeez, how stupid could he get, saying something wasn't supposed to be forever, and not expecting Fraser to freak right out, after an entire lifetime of people moving on without him? Specifics, that's what Fraser needs. "I just meant the dogsledding part, Benton-buddy. The partners thing--that is not short-term, you hear me? And--if you wanna head right back out into the great white nothing, then I'll be right there with you." He hadn't meant to say that, but it's too late to take it back, and he doesn't really want to anyway. Fraser wants to live in a lean-to in the middle of Snowy Bumfuck, Nowhere, Ray'll figure out a way to hack it. He'll make oatmeal for breakfast every day of his life, and be totally fine with it. "I mean, after I eat some real food and stop smelling like a caribou carcass. But then, yeah. Wherever you want to go." 

"Thank you, Ray," Fraser says, in this little quiet, sort of hoarse voice that would have Ray worried, except Fraser's smiling and smiling, like maybe he really has broken something in his face. 

"Any time, Fraser." Ray reaches out to squeeze his arm. "Anyway, yeah, first thing I'm gonna do is have a real breakfast; eggs and bacon--Canadian bacon, ha--and coffee, pancakes, with real maple syrup. No oatmeal in sight." 

Fraser nods and doesn't say anything, just keeps on smiling.

*

But the first thing they do isn't breakfast, mostly because Ray's pretty sure they'd get kicked right back out of any diner they went into, smelling and looking the way that they do when they come in from the nose-numbing cold and strip off their parkas. Fraser gives Ray the first shot at the shower, and Ray tries to be quick, just long enough to get clean, in and out so fast he barely has time to enjoy it. He shaves and is trying to find some clothes that won't knock out anybody who gets too close, and he's thinking about what he's going to order at the little cafe next door, his mouth watering. Then Fraser walks out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, and Ray isn't ever going to own up to the noise he makes, right before he stands up and tackles Fraser onto the nearest ugly floral bedspread. So that's the second thing. 

And then, later, Ray's stomach grumbles under Fraser's cheek, and Fraser huffs a laugh, turning his head a little so that Ray can feel his smile curving against the skin of his belly. 

"It appears to be well past time for those pancakes," Fraser says, but he doesn't move, not until Dief lifts his head over in the corner and whines pathetically, and Ray's stomach growls along.

So breakfast winds up being the third thing, but that's okay, because that breakfast is the best goddamn meal Ray has ever eaten. 

*  
Food is not supposed to be cute. Ray is a red-blooded carnivore, don't get him wrong. He likes a good rare steak, and bacon with his eggs, and Fraser's caribou chili is so good that Thursday nights are now officially chili night in the Fraser-Kowalski cabin. But cows and pigs and caribou aren't _cute_ , that's the thing. They're just food, even if maybe some of Fraser's weird caribou enthusiasm has kind of rubbed off on him lately, now that he's actually seen them, hundreds of them, doing their herd thing across the tundra. 

But Fraser thinks rabbits are food, and all Ray can think of when he sees their limp furry little bodies dangling from Dief's jaws is the pet rabbit Stella had when they were kids, and the way it would cuddle up in her arms and twitch its nose. She'd named it after a rabbit in a book about rabbits, which had been too fucked up for Ray to even sit through the movie version. Anyway, he could never remember the damn flowery name, so he'd just called it Thumper. It liked having its ears rubbed. Stella had cried for a week when it died, and Ray'd helped her and her sister bury it down at the bottom of their back yard. 

Ray'd eaten a lot of pemmican on the quest because pretty much anything was better than rabbit. Fraser would skin them, real quick and matter of fact, and tip out their slimy, ropey insides for Dief, who looked like they were almost as good a treat as fresh donuts, and Ray just could not watch that. And sure, they smelled good when Fraser had 'em roasting over the fire, but then Ray would remember Stella rubbing Thumper's ears, and go find himself some more pemmican. 

Apparently, rabbits are not just Quest-food either. Fraser _likes_ rabbit, enjoys it, like it's the Arctic version of Chinese take-away, only with more fur and blood and guts involved. He comes tramping into the kitchen carrying two of them one day, early on, grinning like he expects Ray to congratulate him on being such a good hunter-gatherer, and offers to teach Ray how to skin them. 

"Nuh-uh, no way," Ray says. "I can't do that. I cannot do that, you hear me, Fraser? Do not even try to teach me how how to do that."

Fraser shrugs--"Well, it's your loss, Ray,"--and makes like he's going to start skinning those rabbits right there over the kitchen sink.

"House rules!" Ray shouts, trying not to look. "No skinning things in the kitchen! Or in any other room. Skinning things is an outdoors-only activity!" Fraser and Dief are both giving him identical judging looks, but Ray doesn't care, because he is not being unreasonable here. Fraser can shoot and skin and eat as many rabbits as he wants, but he's got no right to subject Ray to the gross parts. 

Thing is, when Fraser was a kid, if he didn't like what was on the dinner table, he went to bed hungry. So if Ray's not going to eat the Thumper stew, he's on his own. And up here, there's no Chinese delivery places on speed-dial, no Tony's, no nothing, unless he hooks the dogs up and goes the two hours into town, and by then everything will probably be closed anyway. So Ray resigns himself to toast and pemmican. He's getting really fucking sick of pemmican. And it's a Saturday. Fraser's probably making enough rabbit stew to last through all the way to the next caribou chili Thursday, damn him. 

He hears Fraser's boots on the porch and gets ready to make himself scarce while Fraser does whatever it is he does to turn the raw, furless little bunnies into rabbit stew.

"Wait, Ray," Fraser says, and Ray doesn't turn around, because he does not want to see the bloody rabbits in Fraser's hands, but he does wait, and Fraser continues, "You should get the oven going." 

Ray probably would've said something snarky, except the smug tone in Fraser's voice gets him, and he turns around before he can stop himself. Instead of de-furred rabbits, Fraser's holding a bright red box, the kind that frozen pizzas come in. 

"It says to bake for twenty minutes at 500 degrees Fahrenheit in a conventional oven, but I imagine it won't be too hard to figure out an equivalent with the woodstove," Fraser says, grinning this huge, shit-eating grin at him. "I doubt it will be as good as Tony's, but there is a can of pineapple rings in the cupboard." 

Ray has no idea how Fraser managed to be sneaky enough that he didn't notice a pizza in the icebox outside--maybe Fraser hid it in a snowbank or something--but he doesn't care. Between them, Dief whines pitifully, swivelling his head from Ray to the pizza box and back again.

"Now, Diefenbaker," Fraser says, "There's plenty of stew for you, and--yes, of course it has vegetables in it, they won't kill you. The pizza was meant to be a treat for Ray, you shouldn't be so greedy." 

Ray takes the pizza box from him and sneaks in a quick kiss before Fraser can keep on with scolding Dief. "It's a pretty big pizza, Frase. Plenty to share." Fraser looks doubtful, but it doesn't take too much convincing to get him to agree that perhaps he and Dief will eat a slice or two, if Ray is certain he doesn't mind, which Ray is. He's not expecting Fraser to ever admit it, but Ray's pretty sure Fraser likes pizza even more than he likes things with rabbits in them. And he _knows_ Dief does. 

Frozen pizza's not as good as Tony's, or even the place in town, but it's not half bad either, kind of smokey from the woodstove, with plenty of pineapple on top. 

"I bet I could do this," Ray says. "Learn to make pizza, I mean." Diefenbaker yips, nosing at the empty cookie tray on the coffee table. 

"I believe that was an enthusiastic endorsement of your proposed endeavour," Fraser says. There's pizza sauce on the corner of his mouth, and Ray's like eighty percent certain he knows and is just not using his napkin on purpose, like Ray needs an excuse to kiss him, but it's not like Ray's going to turn it _down_.


End file.
